Jake Gyllenhaal spends Source Code in two places. His character being kept alive as part of a military experiment: The government can access one tiny part of his mind that hasn’t died, and has placed him on a mission to find the bomber of a commuter train in Chicago. That’s the first location. The second is inside his mind, and within that, inside the memories of a man on that train, as he tries to track down the domestic terrorist who blew it up. It’s not an easy concept to grasp, but director Duncan Jones (from a script by Ben Ripley) boils it down into a thoroughly Hollywood kind of thriller—in the best possible way. There’s good action, a few laughs, a slight love interest and a solid performance by the leading man. You come away thinking the director, making just his second feature film, sure did make it look easy.
ByColin Boyd